Edward Benson - The Angel of Pain

Madge slightly entrenched herself at this.

“I really haven’t studied my own expression,” she said. “Women are supposed to use mirrors a good deal, but they use them, I assure you, to see if their hair is tidy.”

“Your’s never is quite,” said he. “And it suits you admirably.”

Again the gravel sounded crisply below their feet, without the overscore of human voices.

Then he spoke again.

“And please accept my portrait of you as my wedding present to you – and Philip,” he said with boyish abruptness.

Madge for the moment was too utterly surprised to speak.

“But, Mr. Dundas,” she said at length, “I can’t – I – how can I?”

He laughed.

“Well, I must send it to Philip, then,” he said, “if you won’t receive it. But – why should you not? You are going to marry my oldest friend. I can’t send him an ivory toothbrush.”

This reassured her.

“It is too kind of you,” said she. “I had forgotten that. So send it to him.”

“Certainly. But help me to make it then as good as I can.”

“Tell me how?” she asked, feeling inexplicably uneasy.

“Why, laugh,” he said. “That is how I see you. You laugh so seldom, and you might laugh so often. Why don’t you laugh oftener?”

Then an impulse of simple honesty came to her.

“Because I am usually bored,” she said.

“Ah, you really mustn’t be bored while I am painting you,” he said. “I could do nothing with it if you were bored. Besides, it would be so uncharacteristic.”

“How is that, when I am bored so often?” she asked.

“Oh, it isn’t the things we do often that are characteristic of us,” said he. “It is the things we do eagerly, with intention.”

She laughed at this.

“Then you are right,” she said. “I am never eagerly bored. And to tell you the truth, I don’t think I shall be bored when I sit to you. Ah, there is Philip. He does not see us; I wonder whether he will?”

Philip’s white-fronted figure had appeared at this moment at the French window leading out of the drawing-room, and his eyes, fresh from the bright light inside, were not yet focussed to the obscurity of the dusk. At that moment Madge found herself suddenly wishing that he would go back again. But as soon as she was conscious she wished that, she resolutely stifled the wish and called to him.

“Evelyn there, too?” he asked. “Evelyn, you’ve got to go in and take my place.”

“And you will take mine,” said he with just a shade of discontent in his voice.

“No, my dear fellow,” said Philip. “I shall take my own.”

He laughed.

“I congratulate you again,” he said, and left them.

Philip stood for a moment in silence by the girl, looking at her with a sort of shy, longing wonder.

“Ah, what luck!” he said at length. “What stupendous and perfect luck.”

“What is luck, Philip?” she asked.

“Why, this. You and me. Think of the chances against my meeting you in this big world, and think of the chances against your saying ‘Yes.’ But now – now that it has happened it couldn’t have been otherwise.”

Some vague, nameless trouble took possession of the girl, and she shivered slightly.

“You are cold, my darling?” he said quickly.

She had been leaning against the stone balustrade of the terrace, but stood upright, close to him.

“No, not in the least,” she said.

“What is it, then?” he asked.

“It is nothing. Only I suppose I feel it is strange that in a moment the whole future course of one’s life is changed like this.”

He took her hands in his, and the authentic fire of love burned in his eyes.

“Strange?” he said. “Is it not the most wonderful of miracles? I never knew anything so wonderful could happen. It makes all the rest of my life seem dim. There is just this one huge beacon of light. All the rest is in shadow.”

She raised her face to him half imploringly.

“Oh, Philip, is it all that to you?” she asked. “I – I am afraid.”

“Because you have made me the happiest man alive?”

A sudden, inevitable impulse of honesty prompted Madge to speak out.

“No, but because I have perhaps meddled with great forces about which I know nothing. I like you immensely; I have never liked anyone so much. I esteem you and respect you. I am quite willing to lead the rest of my life with you; I want nothing different. But will that do? Is that enough? I have never loved as I believe you love me. I do not think it is possible to me. There, I have told you.”

Philip raised her hands to his lips and kissed them.

“Ah, my dearest, you give me all you have and are, and yet you say, ‘Is that enough?’” he whispered. “What more is possible?”

She looked at him a moment, the trouble not yet quite gone from her face. Then she raised it to his.

“Then take it,” she said.

The night was very warm and windless, and for some time longer they walked up and down, or stood resting against the terrace wall looking down over the hushed woods. A nightingale, the same perhaps that had been charmed to Tom’s finger two evenings ago, poured out liquid melody, and the moon began to rise in the East. Gradually their talk veered to other subjects, and Madge mentioned that Evelyn was willing to do her portrait.

“He will begin at once,” she said, “because it appears his impression of me isn’t a thing that will keep. He is putting off another order for it.”

“That is dreadfully immoral,” said Philip, “but I am delighted to hear it.”

“Oh, and another thing. He gives it us – to you and me I think he said – as a wedding present.”

“Ah, I can’t have that,” said Philip quickly. “That is Evelyn all over. There never was such an unthinking, generous fellow. But it is quite impossible. Why, it would mean a sixth part of his year’s income.”

“I know; I felt that.”

Philip laughed rather perplexedly.

“I really don’t know what is to be done with him,” he said. “Last year he gave my mother a beautiful pearl brooch. That sort of thing is so embarrassing. And if she had not accepted it, he would have been quite capable of throwing it into the Thames. Indeed he threatened to do so. And he will be equally capable of throwing his cheque into the fire.”

“All the same, I like it enormously,” she said; “his impulse, I mean.”

“I know, but it offends my instincts as a man of business. I might just as well refuse to charge interest on loans. However, I will see what I can do.”

They went in again soon after this, for it was growing late, and found Lady Ellington preparing to leave the table of her very complete conquests. It had fallen to Evelyn to provide her with a no-trump hand containing four aces, and she was disposed to be gracious. The news, furthermore, that he would begin her daughter’s portrait at once was gratifying to her, and she was anxious that the sittings should begin at once. As both they and he would be in town for the next month, the matter was easily settled, and it was arranged that the thing should be put in hand immediately.

Philip followed Evelyn to the billiard-room as soon as the women went upstairs, and found him alone there.

“The Hermit has gone to commune with Nature,” he said. “He will die of natural causes if he doesn’t look out. He called me a Pagan this morning, Philip. Wasn’t it rude? And the fact that it is true seems to me to make it ruder.”

Philip lit his cigarette.

“I’m going to be rude too, old chap,” said he. “Evelyn, you really mustn’t make a present of the portrait to Madge and me. It is awfully good of you, and just like you, but I simply couldn’t accept it.”